The Red Wings' season could end this afternoon, as they face a 3-1 series deficit heading into Game Five in Boston.

Jonas Gustavsson will get the start in net for Detroit, as Jimmy Howard still has the flu, though rumors abound that he may have actually been concussed from a knee to the head in Game Three. Howard won't even be available to serve as backup as he nominally did in Game Four, so Jake Paterson has been called up from the Grand Rapids Griffins.

In another lineup change, Daniel Alfredsson is expected to return after missing two games due to a back injury. There's no word on who he would replace.

If the Red Wings were to lose Game Five, it would just be the second series in their history that they lost in five after winning Game One.

Stupid stat of the day: In the nineteen previous times Detroit has gone down 3-1 in a best-of-seven series, the Red Wings are 7-12 in Game Five.

Watching the other series in the playoffs, I am of the opinion that the Wings would do fine in any of them. None of the other series look remotely related to the games the Wings played....I suspect that Boston will run rough-er shod over the rest of their opponents, while I sincerely hope that does not happen because then that's the way everyone will be building teams (to look like the Bruins which is, to me, a most boring style of play). I look back at the Boston/Vancouver SCF a few years ago, and I am sorry that Vancouver has never recovered from that loss while Boston reached the finals again last year and will probably be champions (without some very creative and inconsistent officiating along the way) again this year.